Posted on 05/05/2021 8:35:36 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In the name of equality, the California Department of Education seeks to dumb down the brightest kids.
A friend of mine emailed an article the likes of which always prompts me to say "really?"
Please consider the Reason article In the Name of Equity, California Will Discourage Students Who Are Gifted at Math.
I like to verify things myself and you can do so as well by reading the California Department of Education Mathematics Framework.
In its framework, the Department of Education seeks "Culturally responsive mathematics education."
Active efforts in mathematics teaching are required in order to counter the cultural forces that have led to and continue to perpetuate current inequities. Mathematics pathways must open mathematics to all students, eliminating option-limiting tracking. [i.e. no advance classes].
implementation of this framework and the standards, teachers must be mindful of other considerations that are a high priority for California’s education system including the Environmental Principles and Concepts (EP&Cs) which allow students to examine issues of environmental and social justice.
The evolution of mathematics in educational settings has resulted in dramatic inequities for students of color, girls, and students from low income homes.
Teachers are encouraged to align instruction with the outcomes of the California ELD Standards, which state that linguistically and culturally diverse English learners receive instruction that values their home cultures.
I did not go through all the chapters. Reason uncovered these gems.
The inequity of mathematics tracking in California can be undone through a coordinated approach in grades 6–12.
Middle-school students are best served in heterogeneous classes.
The push to calculus in grade twelve is itself misguided.
To encourage truly equitable and engaging mathematics classrooms we need to broaden perceptions of mathematics beyond methods and answers so that students come to view mathematics as a connected, multi-dimensional subject that is about sense making and reasoning, to which they can contribute and belong.
Reason concludes, and I agree "If California adopts this framework, which is currently under public review, the state will end up sabotaging its brightest students. The government should let kids opt out of math if it's not for them. Don't let the false idea that there's no such thing as a gifted student herald the end of advanced math entirely."
Instead, and in the name of "equity", the proposed framework aims to keep everyone learning at the same dumbed down level for as long as possible.
The intention is clear. The California Board of Education intends to sabotage the best and brightest, hoping to make everyone equal.
The public does not support these polices. Indeed, it is precisely this kind of talk that nearly got Trump reelected.
Biden should speak out against such nonsense, but he won't. He is beholden to Teachers' Unions and Boards of Education.
Care to complain? If so the California Department of Education posted these ways.
Phone: 916-319-0598
Instructional Quality Commission
1430 N Street, Room 3207
Sacramento, CA 95814
Fax: 916-319-0172
Q: Who is the arbiter of environmental, mathematic, and social justice?
A: The California board of Education. They intend to cram it down your child's throat and dumb down gifted kids no matter what their parents believe or how vigorous the objections.
If you wish to protest these absurd policies, phone or write the board of education as posted above.
Better yet, get the hell out of California.
I have a nephew who was/is a computer software whiz—learned _all_ of it on his own using the Internet.
Smart and motivated kids have the greatest resources ever available.
The dumb and/or un-motivated kids are just getting left further and further behind....public schools are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
One of our DILs found out about what you posted 5 years ago when she was trying to get her daughter/our granddaughter into a California Nursing School.
Her daughter would have been graduated with all A’s in honor classes from an excellent private Catholic school with the exception of 2 B’s in French Classes.
That was keeping her daughter from being accepted in any California nursing school program. Our DIL got into a one on one discussions with one of the whomevers, who was turning down her daughter because of her 2 b’s to give her an example of a selected student.
That whomever showed her 2 examples of students from inner city schools with all straight A’s in so called Honor Classes.
After that event, we convinced our DIL to have her a daughter apply to good out of California Nursing Schools.
So they did, and every one of the out of California College/University B$ accepted her. One of the top Nursing school in the NE not only selected her, they offered a $25K/year scholarship.
So our bright young woman accepted the offer and will be graduated this month with honors in 4 years instead who knows 5/7/? years with a California B$ degree.
Also, our dummy, as per California, has been working a few shifts/week in a Covid ICU in an excellent hospital since last summer. That excellent hospital has been paying good money, benefits and donations to a 401k. When she asked why all the benefits, the head RNs at that hospital told her, “When you are graduated this May, you will get a raise and don’t have to worry about job hunting or going back to California and be insulted. We want you to stay and work for our hospital!”
It’s beginning to make sense; colleges are becoming steaming shitholes of “wokeness” in lieu of institutions of higher learning because they increasingly with ignorami, the victims of high school’s devolution in pursuit of “equity.” Ho high schools produce idiots and colleges fuel their idiocy even further. Welcome to socialism, where “free college” will make degrees even more worthless.
I took Calculus as a high school senior, and advanced-placed out of one term of Calculus at a top-ranked university!!!! And I was NOT the very “best and brightest” in math!!!!
Later, I used Calculus for one part of my Harvard Ph.D. thesis in molecular biology!
Current high school students should have AT LEAST the same opportunities I had!!!! That’s more important than “wokeness”!!!!
Besides that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_and_Deliver
Taking away the ability of people to achieve something does not achieve equality. What it does is bring down people who try and make them sit there while the dumb ones sit there thinking they have achieved something, meanwhile, everybody suffers and the more intelligent people are frustrated. Those who can do more should be encouraged to do so. That is the way life should be. California is the worst example of a state. Vote Republican to cure the problem.
https://reason.com/2021/05/04/california-math-framework-woke-equity-calculus/
“In the Name of Equity, California Will Discourage Students Who Are Gifted at Math ... The new framework aims to keep everyone learning at the same level for as long as possible.”
And if that doesn’t work well enough, there are several excellent ideas to prolong “equality” in this prescient manual of educational “equality”, “Harrison Bergeron”, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.:
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
“The new framework aims to keep everyone learning at the same level for as long as possible.”
And if that doesn’t work well enough, there are several excellent ideas to prolong “equality” in this prescient manual of educational “equality”, “Harrison Bergeron”, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.:
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
Certainly.
But, as I noted in the next sentence, both the California legislature and the state’s “Woke” Department of Education will be motivated to surpress countermeasures (including parental protests).
Of course, California does have a record of successful voter ballot initiatives and recalls.
So...
So they are changing the narrative back to equality rather than for equity. This has been about equity, the outcome rather than the opportunity.
(Judging from my grandchildren's experiences, I'd say they might as well. Or maybe that they already have!)
Sooooo, they’re telling me that since certain segments of the population cannot do advanced math, we need to bring down the rest so that segment doesn’t get their feelings hurt?
Anyone who’s seen “Stand And Deliver” (an absolutely *outstanding* film based on a true story) knows how absolutely disgusting this is. It’s so disgusting that the Butchers of Beijing are rolling in the aisles with laughter right now.
Ditto that. Us sane people can ridicule it right now..
Democrats: Bringing down the USA so our enemies don’t have to.
Back when I was in HS, we were structured as a “ Go to the Head of the Class” game. Best students in front rows. It was a competition every week with each test. Never made it to seat one but was in the front row a couple of times.
Can’t imagine that happening today.
I had a good calculus teacher in high school. Then I started college (Pitt) where the freshman engineering math classes were all taught by grad students that couldn’t speak English. If I hadn’t learned it in high school I would have flunked out of college.
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